Debra, too, had sought contentment here, while also embracing the motto of “living with cancer” as a personal mantra. Shrugging off the cruel timing of her illness — the late stage of her disease, the exhaustion of chemotherapy, her declining health — she, like Hollis, was still determined to enjoy what was supposed to have been prolonged recompense for those laborious, gainful decades. As she saw it, his retirement signaled her retirement, at least to some extent; so it wouldn't be all pain and sickness for her, nor did she continue to play the role of a restive and childless San Gabriel Valley homemaker, or that of a part-time sales associate at Mervyn's. Rather, she quietly redefined herself upon leaving California, seeking an appropriate analogue to her husband's almost daily rounds of golf, finding her answer inside the meeting rooms of the Funtivities Center — where she attended a weekly lecture series on the religions of the world, engaged in several lively debates regarding current events, and learned how to research the genealogy of her family tree.
Immediately following her surgery and prior to becoming too weak to participate, Debra often passed entire days at the Funtivities Center: mornings practicing tai chi, afternoons doing ceramics, and, for a short while, evenings rehearsing with the Ol’ Settlers Drama League (the effects of chemo at last preventing her from performing as Mrs. Gibbs in
Yet only after Dr. Langford's diagnosis did Debra learn about the studies which suggested a connection between ovarian cancer and never having children. Still, she had remembered sensing minor pangs while ovulating, that mid-cycle sensation her gynecologist at the time had called Mittelschmerz — that moment when a single egg expanded, bursting beside the ovary, awaiting either fertilization or to be flushed away with menstruation. Not until her cancer was discovered, though, would she consider the damage inherent to such a routine, commonplace function: for with every egg which ruptured near the ovary came a division of cells — a shifting, a multiplying, a regrouping along the surface lining to seal the gap; and it was that mechanical, automatic dividing and subsequent repair which could allow rogue cells to go astray, producing the microscopic starting point for cancerous beginnings.
“You know what I really hate, what I really can't stomach?” she'd said to Hollis, as they paced the hallways of the cancer center. “It's knowing my body is operating on its own internal clock. Early on it decides I shouldn't have a baby. Then it decides to change my hair color. Then it decides to wrinkle me all over. Now it wants to kill me, and there isn't a damn thing I can do to reset it, or make it stop tick-tocking my life away. That really pisses me off.”
But at least she had her mind, he countered. At least she could control her thoughts, in spite of what her body was doing.
“You're right,” she said. “I guess I can still evolve in a positive direction, even if the rest of me is rapidly decaying. So if nothing else, my brain is on my side.”
“Me and your brain,” he reminded her.
“Forgive me. I stand corrected.”
A fairly recent development in Debra's ongoing evolution was the avoidance of beef and fatty foods, relying instead on a diet of soy products, organic vegetables, chicken breasts, and brown rice. This conversion began when she watched a CNN special report about mad cow disease; soon afterward, while she was asleep in their bed, the disturbing images of infected, spasmodic cattle and humans repeated in her mind, jolting her awake beside Hollis.
“No more beef,” she had announced, nudging him with an elbow: “Hey, no more beef. We can't eat it anymore.”
“What is it?” he said, only half conscious.
“Bovine spongiform encephalopathy.”
“What are you saying?”
“It's cannibalization. They're using meat in stock feed. They're feeding them to themselves.”
“I don't understand.”
“Cows are eating cows, and we're eating the cows that do that, and it's coming back to haunt us. People are dying because of it, and they don't know why for sure. But it's pretty obvious, we ‘re paying a price for toying with nature. Stuff like this always happens when we go against the natural order of things, right? So, please, promise me — no more beef.”
“Okay,” he mumbled, “I promise — no more beef.”
Later Hollis wouldn't confess to the steakhouse dinners which he and Lon consumed during their swap-meet pilgrimages, nor did he point out to Debra that their dormant sex life had been reinvigorated by purely unnatural means: a small 100-milligram pill taken before intercourse, increasing blood flow into his penis, providing an erection which lasted for more than three hours. Although such a laboratory-designed gift wasn't enjoyed without a few minor side effects, including shortness of breath, flushing of the face, and a slightly upset stomach. The drug also brought temporary changes to his color vision, casting their lovemaking in a blue-green tinge (“Viagra vision,” was Lon's nickname for the condition — as he, too, had endured that aquamarine, swimming, goggles-like sensation). The side effects, however, never prevented Hollis from using the pill, and — until she was rushed into surgery — he and Debra had attempted sex on a weekly basis upon arriving at Nine Springs. Then, as opposed to her younger self, she made few excuses whenever the old urge had arisen in him — a headache wasn't claimed, cloying shyness wasn't feigned now that age had banished her modesty.
But if Viagra had sexual side effects, so did ovarian cancer — related surgery. Except no one had addressed the sexual component for Debra — none of the doctors or nurses had brought up postoperative issues involving vaginal dryness and atrophy from a loss of estrogen, or the possibility that the quality of her sex life would change dramatically. Nor was she prepared to exit the hospital with more than a complete hysterectomy and, weeks thereafter, discover that her libido had somehow also been removed. Perhaps, she had explained to Hollis, her lack of sexual interest resulted from a combination of stress, chemo, and an altered body image: not to mention the pain which accompanied intercourse, or the scar which defined her pale-white abdomen, or — as she would ultimately conclude — the fact that the organs she had always identified with her womanhood were forever gone.
“You're still beautiful to me,” he told her, reaching for her breasts. “You're still the most beautiful woman I've ever known.”
“Well, I better be,” she said, giving his hands free rein, closing her eyes when his lips pressed against her neck.
Yet following her surgery, in the moments succeeding their halfhearted attempts at intercourse, Hollis sensed her dissatisfaction — not so much from the lazy aftermath of sex, or from the heightened pleasure their bodies had endeavored to reach; rather, it was a vague reproach, a kind of indirect longing for something he couldn't know, an absence, expressed with the shifting of her figure, how she had turned her back to him, sighing or yawning prior to napping, the sheets becoming a warm membrane which then separated their skin. Once they were finished — wads of Kleenex dotting the carpet, the K-Y personal lubricant set aside — silence frequently overtook her; on occasion, however, she spoke, saying things which seemed out of context to his lingering ardor: “It's double coupons at Safeway this Thursday, don't let me forget.”
“I won't.”
He felt he hadn't touched her, hadn't touched her at all.
“And remind me to call Viv to get her sand tart recipe. It'd be a nice treat for the drama league's potluck next month.”
“Okay.”
Or, lately, she summoned people and places which rarely entered his thoughts, evoking memories of their old ranch-style home in Arcadia, wondering if the new Taiwanese owners were taking good care of its gardens: “Do they have birds-of-paradise in Taipei?” Maybe her deceased family members were discussed, maybe a trifle concerning her only sibling: “Jackie's a mess. She phoned this morning, looks like Fred is off the wagon.” Or she
